Summary:
It’s the future, and the world is in another semi-cold war between NATO and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China). A NATO group of British, American, and German naval ships is being sent to Brazil on a mission, but part-way there they are all zapped back in time to 1940. With the chance to change history for the better, what will they decide to do?

Review:
I first want to point out that Breit is German and wrote this in English himself; it is not a translation. I have to say that I wonder why he made that choice as the plot certainly seems to have more of a European than an American appeal, but I am impressed at his effort to write in his second language.

The summary of the book makes the plot sound fast-paced, but in fact it is actually distressingly slow-moving. It takes about 1/3 of the book for the all-important time-traveling event to happen. I spent the whole first part of the book just waiting and wondering when it was going to happen, because once the basic politics of the world and character traits were set up, it’s just a waiting game. The naval mumbo-jumbo filling up the rest of the space just wasn’t necessary. This issue carries on throughout the book with half of the sailors spending a solid amount of their time stranded on an island, for instance. Since this is marketed as a fast-paced historical thriller, perhaps somewhat like the style of The Da Vinci Code it quite simply needs to move along faster. Intense naval specifics and codes are not necessary. Fast-moving plot is.

Breit also needs to invest in a British and American editor each, as the British and American characters say and do things that are just flat-out wrong in British and American English respectively. One that really slapped me across the face is that one of the characters is from Boston, but everyone refers to him as a “Bostoner.” People from Boston are called “Bostonians.” I have never once in my life heard anyone say “Bostoner,” and I live in Boston. Another example is at one point one of the Americans reads another American’s birthdate from off an id and says it the European way “11 September 2001,” instead of the American way “September 11th, 2001.” This is one of those instances where the author needs to have his facts straight in order for the story to be believable. Nothing makes me not believe a character is American quite like having him get a bunch of American English wrong.

Additionally, as a woman and an author, the way the female characters are handled is distressing to me. Just one example is that a bunch of the stranded female sailors are attacked on the island by some of the locals in an attempt at rape. These women who had the exact same training as their male counter-parts are apparently completely incapable of saving themselves, but instead have to be rescued by their male comrades. But it gets worse. Later when the captain of the ship is relating the event to another man, he asks if the women were alright. The captain responds by saying that the doctor said they were fine. The doctor. Apparently nobody bothered to ask these women if they were raped (HINT: I’m pretty sure women can tell if they’ve been raped or not). Plus no one seems to care that these women are clearly not going to be emotionally ok after almost getting raped, and not once do any of the female characters who were attacked say anything about it with their own voices. This is just completely inexcusable. It’s a removal of women’s voices from ourselves, and it’s insulting to a female reader.

There’s the issue of European bias expressed through the American characters. For instance, one American character expresses shame at how Americans only speak one language. First of all, the rate of bilingualism in the US is actually rising, so following the arc of the future, there should be more bilingual Americans, not less. Second, I’ve never once heard an American express woe in an all-encompassing way like that by saying something like “It’s so sad Americans aren’t bilingual.” People say, “I wish I was fluent in another language,” or “I wish I was fluent in Japanese,” but they just don’t put it that way. That whole paragraph sounded like a European using an American character as a puppet to say what Europeans think of Americans. Yeesh.

I also have problems with the German characters though. A bunch of them express the desire to stop the Holocaust not to save lives but to save the German people from harboring the shame and guilt for generations to come. Um, what? That’s your concern oh time-traveling Germans? Having been to Germany myself on a student exchange and visited Dachau, etc… I can say that I have a hard time imagining any of the kids my age at the time (15ish in the early 2000’s) focusing in on that as opposed to stopping a bad thing from happening because it’s evil and wrong. I can only imagine that generations even further along would be even more focused in on stopping a genocide as opposed to saving some broad idea of German honor. It’d be like having a time-traveling modern American decide to stop the Trail of Tears to save us from shame as opposed to doing it to save innocent Cherokees. The whole thought just makes my brain hurt.

To sum up, Breit shows ability as a writer that needs to be worked on and honed. I’d recommend either getting a good editor who can handle both British and American English or switching to writing in German. He also needs to work on tightening up his plot. Normally I’d say, nice first effort keep trying, but due to the opinions and biases and presentation of women present in this first attempt, I’m afraid I can’t say that. It’s readable, but why would you want to read it anyway?

Featured Quote

"Is all very well thinking everything is going to be different when you come back but then it is all the same. Suppose I have to make it different."
--Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding